Old-world brewing on tap at Old World Wisconsin

Tim Murphy (from left) pours a sugary malted solution into a kettle to be boiled while Gary Luther and Bob Heger watch at Old World Wisconsin in Eagle. More at jsonline.com/photos . Credit: Sam Caravana

Eagle — It's in the mid-80s, hotter in the sun, but around the Sudhaus, the brewing center at Old World Wisconsin, it's likely in the 90s or hotter.

Two open fires fuel the large copper and wooden pots. The summer air smells like ash and campfire, overpowering the smell of the barley mash soaking five feet away.

Around the pots, men get into a discussion about the barley, growing in a field not a mile away. It's a legacy malting barley called manchuria, the same used in the 1800s. Across the street from the Sudhaus, there's a hop garden, where the vines are slowly starting to work their way up rods in the ground.

Milwaukee is known for its brewing history. At Old World Wisconsin this year, you can go back 200 years to see how the Brew City legacy started.

Old World Wisconsin is an institution itself, chronicling the origins of local settlement through re-enactments divided by ethnic establishments. The end of June marked the living history museum's 40th anniversary.

But in the German settlement at Old World Wisconsin, June 25 marked a new date: the season's first historic brewing program.

The program, a partnership between Old World Wisconsin and the Museum of Beer & Brewing, teaches the process of brewing beer, from growing the ingredients to fermentation done the same way 19th-century brewmasters did.

Gary Luther, a brewing engineer who studied in Germany and is a brewmaster with the Museum of Beer & Brewing, said it's an educational experience.

"It's not just that you're making beer here — it's that you're understanding all of the processes of it," Luther said. "There's engineering to it, there's biochemistry to it, and it's putting it all in simple terms that people can understand."

For the first event of the season, the brewers celebrated German heritage by making Altbier, a top-fermenting beer (a.k.a. ale) most German immigrants would be familiar with.

The program has more sessions scheduled through October.

To make 15 gallons of beer, it's a 10-hour process from start to finish. And at the end, the brewers taste and dispose of it. The program can't sell the beer because it doesn't have a commercial license to do so.

Luther calls the experience a "show and tell."

The program is still evolving and expanding. The brewers are working on enlarging the hop garden, the barley crop and, eventually, the beer production itself. When the crop is big enough, the brewers will start the malting process as well.

Within the next few years, the Museum of Beer & Brewing and Old World Wisconsin hope to create Pioneer Brewery, an educational brewery with 10 times the current production. They want to be able to let visitors sample the brews.

But it's the experience rather than the amount of beer produced that's the focus of the program. It's all about curiosity.

"The kids enjoy it, especially when they see it," Luther said. "They smell the hops and they're milling the malt or smelling the mash — and we're trying to bring it down to their level."

MORE BREWING ON TAP

The beer historians from Old World Wisconsin and the Museum of Beer & Brewing have more brewing sessions scheduled this summer. Each runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday: Weiss Bier, a wheat beer

Aug. 13: Koelsch, a light ale

Sept. 17: Märzen, a Vienna lager

Oct. 8: Bockbier, a heavier lager

In addition, there will be programs on hop harvesting on Aug. 28 and barley threshing on Sept. 24.

Admission to Old World Wisconsin, W372-S9727 Highway 67, Eagle, is $19; $16 for seniors 65 and older; $10 for children ages 5 to 17; free for kids 4 and younger; and $50 for a family pass for up to two adults and all children under 18). For more information, call (262) 594-6301 or go to oldworldwisconsin.wisconsinhistory.org.